The Demon in My Shadow
by The Magnificent Kiwi
Summary: Sometimes loss forces you to move on; sometimes it drags you into darkness. Jill waded through grief only to find that her steps were into the past, back into the chains he forged. Post-RE5. Mild C/J.


**AN - **This is just an idea I wanted to write down, kind of linked to an idea for a story I may write in the future. It's a lot shorter than my usual work, and perhaps a little messy but I wrote it as sort of a ramble and kind of like how it came out. Please let me know what you think.  
I'm lacking a little for inspiration for Blindside at the moment but for those of you who read it I hope to get chapter five up soon.

I hope you enjoy :)

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**The Demon in My Shadow**

"_Maybe you have to know darkness before you can appreciate the light."  
~Madeleine L'engle~_

Once again, she woke in the middle of the night, throat burning with the fire of a thousand furies. Insomnia was a bad habit she just could not seem to shake.

The hours that belonged to darkness were the only instances when her body had been her own, the only time she was awarded to cry. Now, she was left with sleepless hours and enough glasses of water to keep her awake the rest of the night.

He knew that she did not sleep, though he pretended not to. It was easier this way; he did not push and she did not lie.

Was she alright? Of course she wasn't. His asking had become redundant.

Settling down on the sofa, she held the cool glass to her forehead, allowing the ice to ease the migraine she could sense arriving.

The living room was her pride and joy, the one room she had decorated herself with no outside help or nagging from her fiancé. Beige walls, deep brown accents and enough memories to keep them living in nostalgia. The old S.T.A.R.S. team sat proudly in a frame beside her mother, the centrepiece of a fitting tribute to memory lane. Sometimes she wondered how they were doing, whether they were happy where they were. Whether there was truly peace after death. Their was certainly no peace in the world in which she resided.

'Waking up every morning; that's the difficult part.'

Because truth be told, she was not alright and she doubted that she ever would be.

The glass was lowered to her knee, condensation dripping onto her overheated skin. It had not taken long for her body to fall back into shape, for her tight bed shorts to once again fit. After all, there was not much that had changed; it was all internal, all of the chemicals and the nausea that she found that she sadly missed.

Tears dropped into her glass. There was nothing she could do to cease the flow, and she shamefully waited it out, knowing that it would soon pass. She had to move on, had to leave the past in the past. The struggle seemed so easy when she was not the one putting in all the effort. It was not that she could not, more that she failed to see a reason why she should.

It had all been so simple before, but she had never lost family, had never felt the pain of a loved one's life failing. She would have done anything to save them, anything to have them in her arms.

'Some things were never meant to be,' she lamented. If only she could accept that truth and take a step towards sanity.

"Sad little girl."

The voice came out of nowhere, and its icy tone crept beneath her skin, tugging at each nerve until the fear threatened to cripple.

"No," she whispered, the breath barely passing her lips when she heard heavy footsteps against the carpet. "You're dreaming, it's all in your head."

"Would it make any difference if that were true?"

And then he stepped into the moonlight, hair gleaming white against the glow. She hated his hair, had hated her own for defecting to his side when she refused to bend. Why did he choose to dress himself in black? Was it a statement? She had always love black herself; the way it would hide every flaw and accentuate that which she did not truly possess. But now she could not stomach the colour. She had thrown away every black dress that she owned. The hair was enough, she would not become him, she refused to become him.

"We can play the ignorance game all night if you wish," Wesker chuckled. "But I doubt it would do much for your sanity."

"Leave me alone," she begged, voice rattling in her throat. After all that had happened, she thought his features could not frighten her further. But everything bad in her life could be traced back to this one man; the deaths of her friends, the wasted years, the near-loss of her life and the captivity that followed. Even the death of...

"Jill, Jill," he sighed. He remained as he was, arms folded across his chest. He did not need to move to further inject terror into her veins. Perhaps the therapy was not as successful as she had initially thought?

But who was to say that? She had never anticipated being face to face with her captor again; he was _dead_, she saw what was left of his body disintegrate in the lava! She had breathed that polluted sigh of relief and turned her back on all that he had brought her to be. This was impossible.

"I told you I would never let you go."

The glass flew from her hand, passing through his form to impact on the wall behind him. The carpet soaked up the majority of the liquid, leaving the rest to drip down the painted surface of the wall as luminescent blue light reflected off the shattered shards. She was unsure what she had hoped to achieve.

Wesker found her sudden outburst amusing.

"Stable as always, I see," he smiled. "I must say, I'm touched that you are still thinking of me after all this time. Who would have thought you had it in you?"

She pushed away from the sofa in frustration, and moved towards the fireplace, finding solace in the memories she had neatly arranged before the oversized mirror. She had chosen it for its ability to increase the perceived size of the room, but now all it served was a purpose of intimidation. His reflection continued to stare her down, his presence slowly beginning to convince her that this was not another trick played on her by a broken mind.

Her eyes fell to a small photograph that had been propped between two candlesticks, given a position of sombre precedence. A familiar sadness fell upon her, her heart rising to her throat as her uninvited guest suddenly fell from thought. A small toy bear rested against it; it was a gift she had chosen herself, so perfect she forced herself to buy it. But now its meaning and reason were defunct, as was hers.

The shape of her child was strikingly evident against the backdrop of noise, curled up as far as it undeveloped body would allow. There was a lot to see for a child so young, the first sign of a promising future. But it was not a promise to be kept.

"Where is the child, now?" Wesker asked, standing over her shoulder.

She wanted to fight, to shout him down like she had done to the innocent father on many occasions, but deep down she lacked the strength. Too much had been sapped from her through the ordeal. She could barely find the strength to face each day, let alone fall back into her previously confrontational state of defence.

"How many people are going to leave you, Jill?" he asked, faking sympathy in his tone. "You're losing Chris, or had you failed to notice that?"

"Go away," she ordered, though her voice betrayed her emotion. "Leave me alone. You're dead, you're _nothing_."

"Maybe not..." His voice was low and she shuddered as its serpentine tendrils wrapped around her, pulling her back to a time she was desperate to forget. Fingers appeared suddenly on her arm, tracing the lines of raised hairs up to her shoulder. She was frozen, paralysed with fear. Was that why she could not pull away? She always felt so weak around him.

"You're going insane, Valentine," he whispered, lips brushing her ear.

Nausea rose in her throat, her body stiff against his as he moved forward. His free hand reached round to her abdomen, pressing hard against an area that was still tender to the thought.

"I'll never let you go," he growled, lips now against her neck.

And then, he was gone.

She fell to the floor, the photograph and bear falling with her.

"Leave me alone!" she screamed, knowing that nobody was there to hear her.

But that was it; she _was_ alone. Chris could barely look at her anymore, her friends had their own lives and her family had lived for years without her. No company, no help, no escape. Only the darkness and the thoughts that were slowly tearing her apart.

Her fingers reached for the photograph, but came away bloody. There were no droplets on the scan, none on the floor or her hands. Three fingertips, coated in a substance that now sickened her to observe.

Something damp trickled down her thigh, tickling the bare skin in a most unnatural way.

Jill screamed. Her shorts, once white, were drenched in thick crimson liquid. Phantom pains coursed through her entire body, and she reached for the fireplace, grappling for something to pull her to her feet. She could almost feel her womb twist, feel the pain she had felt that night. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she resigned herself to the inevitable, praying for a miracle.

A hand gripped her throat, hauling her painfully upright.

"I may be dead, but you are not free," Wesker hissed into her ear, tightening his grip until breath eluded her. "You will _never_ be free. I _own_ you."

There was little flesh visible on her legs, and the pool at her feet continued to grow. She struggled for breath but could not find it, clawed for the hand that held her throat but found nothing. The room darkened, carefully-painted walls giving way to weathered stone, to laboratory tiles and finally, the clinical salience of a hospital ward.

Then, hands were at her waist, warm and tender.

"Jill!"

Wesker was gone, but his chokehold remained and she spluttered unintelligible words into the stifling atmosphere.

"Snap out of it, baby, come on."

And slowly, her trachea opened once again and she almost choked on the air she gulped greedily down. Warmth surrounded her now, friendlier arms taking her in. Her laboured breathing calmed against him, soothing hands rubbing life back into her limbs.

It was comfort of the purest form, radiating from a body she had barely touched since that dreadful day.

He moved after a moment or two, and she could sense that his gaze was directed towards the photograph on the floor. His body tensed, breath held within his chest and suddenly she was not sure who comforted who.

Sometimes she forgot the child had been his. It was so easy to lose yourself in your own sadness.

There had been no funeral, no body to bury. Somehow she believed it would have been easier had they been offered this small comfort. What little that existed had been disposed off clinically, no remembrance offered. In many ways it was as if the child had never existed. The shrink had told her that no life had been lost, but how would they know? They had not played host to its wonder for eleven weeks, had not fallen in love with hope. It not only felt as though she had lost a close friend, it felt as though she had lost a part of herself.

There were times she would barely speak to Chris, where she would sit alone in their room, clutching the bear she had chosen with love. She had assumed that their engagement was over – after all, she had lost his child – and that would be one blow too many. But he was here, and he still held her the way he always had. Perhaps his denial of blaming her was truthful after all? Perhaps love through pain was attainable.

"Are you okay?" he asked, attention once again devoted to her.

She shook her head this time, admitting to the loss that plagued them both and to something new that she did not quite understand. Wesker had infected her dreams before, but her waking hours at least were free from his influence. Not anymore.

Were his words to be believed, or was he yet another figment of her imagination? She was not the same as she had once been, and perhaps part of her still truly belonged to him. She did not know if her miscarriage was a result of what he put her through; conception was unfortunately close to her rescue. While the thought angered her, it offered hope in the assurance that there would not be a repeat, that her system was now free of all he had pumped into it and that the same tragedy would not strike twice.

But there was still Wesker, there was still the fear.

"We're going to make it through this," Chris assured her, pressing his lips to her temple. "I promise. We'll be alright."

What could she do but believe his words? It was the only hope she had. Trust the man she loved or trust the man she could not forget?

She could feel that her thighs were dry, the nightmare thankfully over. The blood would never dry, but she could learn to make peace with it. Because he may have besieged her mind, but her soul was her own and always would be.

Her heart, for now, lay in the hands of a man, barely beating against the sorrow. She trusted him with all that was left in her command, and loved him with everything capable of feeling.

That was something Wesker could never take away.

**AN - Please review :)**


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